


Had we but World enough, and Time

by Princess_Sarcastia



Series: i am tired of re-writing tragedy without change. let them live. let them learn. let them love. [1]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka learns that, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fall of the Republic, Fix-It, Force Visions, Gen, Redemption, The Force, her responsibility to save it, meta about the Force, neither should it have been, not only is it not her responsibility, soft future where everything is beautiful and very little hurts, to fix the republic, vagueblogging about the Republic's political system, vagueblogging about the clone trooper revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27325399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Sarcastia/pseuds/Princess_Sarcastia
Summary: "And who is your master?"  Ahsoka thinks to ask; the galaxyshifts.—The Republic cannot stumble up to the edge of oblivion and then step back gracefully, kindly, simply, easily, just because they notice it’s happened.Anend is inevitable.—Ahsoka Tano learns how to come into her own without the fate of the galaxy resting on her shoulders.
Relationships: Ahsoka Tano & The Jedi Order, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, Bail Organa & Ahsoka Tano, Barriss Offee & Ahsoka Tano
Series: i am tired of re-writing tragedy without change. let them live. let them learn. let them love. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020048
Comments: 9
Kudos: 64





	Had we but World enough, and Time

**Author's Note:**

> heyo, who else didn't fucking expect me to write another star wars fic, in this, the year of our lord 2020? I certainly didn't. I have no clue where this came from, actually; this isn't even the star wars fic I set out to write. But honestly, this is better than that. 
> 
> Title from, "To His Coy Mistress," a famous poem by Andrew Marvell
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Maul _smirks_ and the feeling of it lingers in the wider office, grating.

But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.

Her breath comes and goes in quick bursts, montrals shuddering lightly with exhaustion. The enormity of what they’ve done has started falling on her; the enormity of what _she’s_ done, by the Force. But her hands are the kind of steady earned through a crucible of three years of constant battle.

Too much battle, Master Windu thinks, and Ahsoka narrows her eyes at him when she catches it and presses closer.

“You don’t lay a finger on him; none of you get to do that, not now.”

“Now that I’ve—” Maul starts to drawl, but Ahsoka cuts him off.

“Not helping, Maul,” she spits without taking her eyes off the _threatthreathreat_ she can feel from Master Windu.

Ahsoka showed up out of nowhere with the enemy she was meant to capture as backup—or, she was his backup, they hadn’t quite straightened that out on the way. But it’s also that Anakin has—Anakin was—Anakin _is_ —and Ahsoka was his apprentice for three years. 

And whose fault is that? Ahsoka thinks desperately, and Windu catches it, and it’s getting harder and harder for them to keep their shields up, keep their minds from meeting in the Force; Master Fisto lies dead not ten feet from her, and she’s used to dead bodies, she is, but dead Jedi still feel anathema and the violence of it lingers in the Force here even though they’ve been dying in droves in the last stages of this pointless conflict all this pointless death she is a solider not a Jedi what was it all _for_?

“Come now, Lady Tano,” Maul says, an undercurrent of pleasure at the chaos he can sense from her—not that he’s any better, he likes chaos. It’s what he’s good at. But she’s not, and it dulls her keen edges.

She forces a slow, full breath in, and out, and her hands stay steady.

“This is not the Jedi way,” Master Windu says like it _matters_.

“No? Maybe not.” Ahsoka draws in another breath. “But I don’t think that means anything, anymore. There have been too many compromises in this war, Master Windu, for you to tell me here and now that Maul deserves to die for winning it.”

“Obi-Wan would agree with me.”

“Obi-wan isn’t here, master,” Ahsoka says like an accusation. “And can you honestly tell me you were going to do anything different? Why were you here in this office?”

“Arresting him, so he could be brought to justice,” Master Windu bites out, and Ahsoka knows she’s won, because it’s a lie.

That’s not what this was about. 

This was about millions of dead clones and thousands of dead Jedi and hundreds of years of steady decay disguised as _peace_. 

  
Another lie.

Master Windu sighs like the weight of the galaxy is pressing it out of him. And maybe it is; destiny fell hard on their shoulders today. 

Now, they find out if they can bear it.

“Fine. We’ll do it your way, Lady Tano,” he capitulates, using Maul’s title for her to make a point. “For now.”

* * *

“How did you get away with being pregnant for so long?” Ahsoka asks hesitantly, as they wait together. “I mean, your gowns make a good effort, but…”

Padmé hums. “They weren’t meant to convince anyone I wasn’t pregnant; it’s,” she taps her armrest, “it’s a cultural thing. Padmé Naberrie is pregnant, but Senator Padmé Amidala isn’t. Our private lives are sacrosanct, on Naboo, and with Palpatine,” her voice breaks, and she clears her throat. “With Palpatine being the Chancellor for so long, Naboo culture was something most of the Senate understood.”

“Ah,” Ahsoka says, and it almost makes sense. “We never had a lot of privacy in the Order. Or in the GAR, but that was different,” she adds, shaking her head.

“How so?” Padmé asks, her eyes brightening the way Master Obi-Wan’s did, those rare moments in between battles when Anakin and Ahsoka could be lured into debating philosophy.

“I mean, we’re all Jedi, we all grow up together, learn together, live together. We’re Jedi,” she repeats, “and we—it’s—we blend together in the Force. There are things we just knew about one another, unless someone made an effort to hide, but then we knew that, too.” She makes a frustrated noise. “It’s not bad, though, it’s comforting. Usually we didn’t feel the _need_ to hide anything from other Jedi, and it was comforting, to know that you could just _be_ in the Temple, without any pretenses.

“Whereas the GAR,” Ahsoka twists her lips wryly, “the lack of privacy stems from the close quarters and the constant battle and movement. There’s no time for privacy when every second wasted means someone else dies. And a lot of the regulations meant there were things we had to report to our superiors. Everything, basically, because some senators who helped draw up regulations thought that our use of the Force meant our every thought and feeling was pertinent to the war effort.”

“I see,” Padmé says, and they sit with these things they’ve said, and all the things they haven’t.

Ahsoka can feel the question in the back of their throats, and she can’t tell if it’s coming from her or from Padmé, but Padmé is the one who gives it life. So kindly that it almost doesn’t feel like the dagger to her gut that it is.

“Is it still like that now?”

“I don’t know,” Ahsoka whispers, finally, because this isn’t something she can say loudly; not yet. “I don’t—not for me. It isn’t like that for me, anymore. But for everyone else?” She asks. “I can’t tell the difference between trauma and classified information and loss of faith in other Jedi, in the others.”

Or in herself.

* * *

When the find the _chips_ —

Little gods and all the Force, too.

Anakin felt like he could have torn all of Coruscant asunder, and Ahsoka knew she wasn’t far behind him. A lot of the other Jedi weren’t far behind him; Aayla Secura and Plo Koon and Depa Billaba and the others who lived and died by thousands of brothers for three years.

But Rex isn’t surprised. That’s what finally breaks Ahsoka: the lack of surprise on Rex’s face and the grim way Cody asks if these chips really change anything.

She leaves the now-chaotic debriefing room and hurries blindly through the halls of the Senate, grasping at the Force for a safe place to land and fall to pieces.

She stumbles into a large set of offices, meant for a senator, maybe, but Ahsoka can’t quite grasp the lay of it with her montrals vibrating like they are; with her eyes so full of this last shattering betrayal, the final throw of earth in its burial.

“Master Jedi?” Someone calls sharply, but Ahsoka can’t answer them before she backs into a corner and sinks to the floor. Can’t correct them, say, _I am no Jedi_ , because she doesn’t know truth from lie anymore.

“Master Jedi,” that same voice repeats more calmly, right in front of her and vaguely familiar. “Ahsoka, right?”

She desperately trills some affirmative, and it must be within their range of hearing because they say, “Okay,” and nothing else.

Slowly, in fits and starts, the physical creeps into her awareness. This is a senator’s office, and if she’s not mistaken, it’s the office of the man crouching in front of her. She recognizes him, vaguely, and might be able to name him with another minute of study.

“Do you know where you are?” He asks, radiating calm like a Jedi master without any of the awareness in the Force.

“Your offices,” Ahsoka bites out lowly, starting to feel a low burn of embarrassment. “Sorry, I’m—sorry. I’m sorry. I was just—”

“It’s fine, Master Jedi. There’s a lot of that going around,” he jokes lightly, except for how it isn’t a joke at all.

“The debriefing,” she says, _the_ debriefing, because there’s only one, and if Ahsoka can recognize him then he’s definitely important enough to sit in on it. “You weren’t there,” she adds questioningly.

“Ah, yes,” he says mildly. “I’m afraid I’ll need to be briefed on the debriefing later by one of my colleagues; Senator Amidala, perhaps, her notes are usually impeccable. I was unavoidably detained by the Queen.”

“The queen,” Ahsoka repeats back to him, like Hondo’s stupid monkey-lizard. 

“Queen Breha Organa,” he responds, and she’s grateful that still, all he radiates is calm, because her embarrassment now is strong enough to rival her desperate horror.

“Your wife,” she says like an idiot to Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, one of the leaders of the delegation of 2000 and main architects of the Republic’s efforts to rebuild.

“Yes,” he says. “Do you drink tea?”

She takes a deep breath in, forcing her heartrate to slow. “I do,” she replies. You can’t spend any time in proximity with Master Obi-Wan without it. 

“I would be honored if you would join me, then,” Senator Organa says, rising and extending a hand to her in one smooth motion that belies his heavy robes. “I think your perspective on these proceedings may be invaluable, if you’re willing to offer it.”

Ahsoka grasps it and pulls to her feet. “It’s the least I can do,” she says. “Seeing as I just had a panic attack in your office.”

“Wonderful,” he smiles at her, not denying it, and leads her away.

* * *

A galaxy cannot stumble up to the edge of oblivion and then step back gracefully, kindly, simply, easily, just because they notice it’s happened. _An_ end is inevitable.

The Republic fell three years ago, thirteen years ago, seventeen years ago. Now the work is sorting shattered remains to see what is worth preserving, and what can be thrown out wholesale.

_Saving_ isn’t on the agenda.

* * *

There are so few Jedi left, now, compared to what they were before. Perhaps half the Order has died, in three years of relentless violence, and those who remain feel brittle in the Force. The very young and the very old alone remain whole, and the disconnect is stifling.

Not all of those who remain stay. Entire lineages depart from the Temple, unable to contemplate trying to live as they had before.

Trying, and failing.

Tholme and T’ra Saa depart for parts unknown to the Order at large as soon as the last battle fades into armistice. Years of intelligence work and corralling those brave few Jedi who were willing to let the darkness swallow them whole have left them closer than the Code can abide. And Quinlan Vos follows soon after, to no one’s surprise. 

Aayla…she stays. She stays, for now, but it’s a tenuous settling. As long as Bly is with her, she will endure.

But if she has to choose between the Order and Bly, or the Order and seeing her master again, the Order will lose.

* * *

Calling them _Senate_ hearings would be a misnomer; the Senate doesn’t really…exist, anymore. With Palpatine gone, a crippling power vacuum sits at the heart of the Republic, leaving them, somehow, even more ineffective than they were before. No system trusts any other system well enough to vote someone else into the Chancellorship that, all of a sudden, seems too powerful for any one being.

But their bylaws are still legal.

If not for the Jedi’s efforts to negotiate armistices with the Confederacy, they would be completely unable to negotiate or sue for peace, left mired in a thousand little wars, shards of the larger conflict that shattered with Dooku and Grievous. The Jedi hold the peace of hundreds of worlds in their palms.

No one is particularly happy with this state of affairs. Not even the Jedi, though some of Bail’s colleagues doubt that to the point of insult.

This particular briefing is in one of the lesser chambers, with perhaps only two hundred key systems directly represented. A dozen Jedi and half that many clones have joined them to provide information and counsel on military matters, and all of their agitation is more palpable by the moment.

Master Windu, as Head of the Order, has spoken before the Senate many times; but today, he remains quiet and stone-faced, his hand pressed against his mouth as if to remind himself of his silence.

Master Kenobi, on the other hand, has exhaustedly pulled and pushed at conversational threads the entire time, lambasting falsehoods and correcting ignorance and on one very startling occasion baring his teeth at a senator who suggested—demanded—the Trade Federation be allowed a voice in these proceedings. 

That motion died swiftly.

The famed negotiator is seemingly at the end of his rope when it comes to these proceedings, and Bail can’t blame him.

After the very first of these briefings, the one Bail missed, Master Skywalker was not allowed to attend, and the look on Ahsoka’s face when they learned of this made him think it’s for the best. 

No Kaminoan representative has appeared after Halle Burtoni was swiftly recalled just before Master Shaak-Ti revealed what had been done to the clone troops, which Bail thinks is also for the best; if only because their safety could not be guaranteed.

* * *

Mace doesn’t understand it until he meets Padawan Vrosch.

_Barely_ Padawan Vrosch; if not for the war, this little nautolan would still comfortably be an initiate, but needs must.

Padawan Vrosch is a padawan of the Temple. Masterless, and left that way too long because no master could take up their training after…after what always happens to Jedi in wars. 

Padawan Vrosch’s master died very early on, after taking a padawan very young on both ends. They went to their master’s funeral, when they were still affording every Jedi lost in battle their own funeral, their own pyre and remembrance.

Most Padawans their age would have been at odd ends; but Vrosch quietly took up their own education, signing up for and attending classes as they came, joining initiates in their saber training, and patiently waiting for the day someone noticed them again.

They also found purpose in these intervening years, a much harder task: attending all the funerals held for fallen Jedi at the Temple.

“I was the only one there for my master,” Padawan Vrosch speaks solemnly up to him. “When he died.”

Mace settles down next to them in the gardens—still too quiet, too empty, too devoid of the sparks of brightness that made it easy to just _be_ in—and waits, patiently, for what the Force is telling him he needs to hear. 

Not just the Force. Mace has trained one Padawan to Knighthood already. A youngling alone shouldn’t stay that way.

“I know the war was important,” Vrosch continues. “The Jedi wouldn’t fight in it if it wasn’t.”

Their faith stirs some inkling of wonder and shame from Mace; he finds he isn’t so certain.

“But we’re Jedi,” they say insistently. “We’re all Jedi. We shouldn’t die alone, and we shouldn’t pass into the Force alone, and we shouldn’t be remembered alone.

“I can’t fight very well, Master Windu,” Vrosch whispers, their tentacles twitching listlessly, like this is a failure on their part. “But I could do this. We aren’t mean to be alone, Master Windu.”

Mace sighs and looks out over too-quiet gardens.

“No, we’re not, Padawan.”

* * *

“Where is he?”

Ahsoka has been avoiding Obi-Wan for this exact reason. 

“I don’t know,” she says quietly, looking back at him steadily. Steady, steady, so, so steady; Ahsoka is steady because if she isn’t then it all falls apart. She’s certain and resolute because if she isn’t then she was wrong, and they Fall.

Obi-Wan runs a hand through his hair, pulling too-long strands out of his face. He’s eroded to the quick. They all are. But leaving on what should have been the last mission of the war, only to return to find the Republic and your padawan on the brink of collapse, your oldest enemy free and your former grandpadawan responsible for freeing him…

The one thing he could still be sure of had been Cody, and even that was taken from him. Now, he has only himself.

“He pulled us back from the Fall, master, and left without taking advantage of it. I don’t think we can ask more from him than that.”

_Welcome to my world, Kenobi_.  
  


None of their shields are functioning anymore. Ahsoka gets Obi-Wan’s full impression of Maul, his sense of Maul’s whole self, and accepts it as another burden on her shoulders. She knew the second she took Maul’s hand that Master Obi-Wan would never forgive her, would never understand, and she did it anyway.

Before he can work through to quiet acceptance of another grievous wound from someone he didn’t expect—a burden that might finally break her—Ahsoka untangles them from each other in the Force and walks away.

_Infinite sadness_ , the Force murmurs to her, but she doesn’t look back.

* * *

It’s like they hit the Republic and the Order and the Galaxy over and over and over and over and _over_ again until cracks spread into their very foundations—and then each took the finishing blow inside themselves, in place of the things they all bled and died and Fell for.

And _they_ all shattered instead.

* * *

When Ahsoka tells Rex what she wants, he drags her to Cody—who gives in with surprisingly little resistance, and then lets her watch his comm to Commander Fox and the _face_ that Fox makes, because Cody outranks everyone and he can’t say no. It almost makes up for _stifling-fear-anger-betrayal_ from her time in Fox’s custody.

Sometimes, Ahsoka forgets that Anakin spent half a year serving with Cody the same way Ahsoka served with Rex.

They try to take her lightsabers at the last checkpoint, but she hands them off to Rex to safely hang from his belt. Not a single one of the men here can be trusted with them in her mind, even though that’s not fair. 

The hard part of being self-aware is knowing you’re being irrational with no way to _stop_.

She waves the escort off, and to her surprise, they leave, though she can feel them linger just around the corner.

One beat, two beats, three beats of silence.

Fine.

Ahsoka settles onto the durasteel floor, lets the cold seep into legs and work its way up her lekku and down her montrals.

In, out, in, out, in…out…i n… . . o u t . .. . …….

Her-not-her- _other_ expands and contracts in time with her lungs, and she becomes grassland; wind whips across the plains and she is the predator at the center, low to the ground, tasting the breeze and aware of every creature, every hidey-hole, every current. _Daughter_ , the wind murmurs, and a convor’s cry echoes across the endless sky.

In the place between them, grassland and frigid desert meet, warm and cold winds mixing to create something more. Something terrible. They are not the same winds; the predator snarls, for it knows death rides on the cold.

Death and betrayal.

Barriss stiffens in her cell, and Ahsoka sighs. _As it should be_ , she thinks, but also, _that’s not why I’m here_.

But also, _Barriss, is that true?_ and _justice is merely the construct of the current power base_.

Barriss’ eyes fly open at that. “So, the rumors are true. You did help him,” she says dully.

“ _He_ helped _me_ ,” Ahsoka fires back. Sighs again. “But maybe it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh?” Barriss raises an eyebrow cooly. 

_With your help, the Jedi can stop Sidious before it’s too late!_

_Too late for what? The Republic to fall? It already has, and you just can't see it! There is no justice, no law, no **order** , except for the one that will replace it_!

Energy crackles between them, and Ahsoka bites her lip.

“I think…” she hesitates. “I think he was right, Barriss,” she whispers. “I think you were right, too.”

Barriss’ breath catches in her throat, her eyes snagging Ahsoka’s until they’re caught in a deadlock and warm and cold winds rise, rise, rise together, and a squall erupts in the Force. At the edge of it, the clone troopers shift, discomforted. 

“You can feel it, too?” Barriss asks desperately, and Ahsoka catches flashes of Master Luminara sitting where she sits now, beaten and drawn and _blind_.

In, out. Ahsoka expands the grasslands and points out the guiding winds to _friend-not_. These aren’t Master Windu’s shatterpoints, but they are everywhere: in the Senate, in the Temple, on the Star Destroyers, in the Jedi and the people and the clones. The Republic has shattered already. It just hasn’t fallen to pieces. _The Republic is failing!_ The Republic is Falling _._

Tears slip down Barriss’ face, _relief-fear-sadness-righteous_. Ahsoka trills, _acknowledgement-soothing-fear-anger_.

“What are we doing? What are we going to do?” Barriss throws out.

“What have we done?” Ahsoka counters. _Blasters-energy-darkness-death-dying-agony-conflict-violence-pain-destruction-death-war-war-war-war._

In _, war,_ out _, war._

“It didn’t die with Sidious. I thought—but Maul was right, you were right. It’s all of us. And I don’t know how to fix it, Barriss, and I don’t think anyone else does, either.” She shifts, hugging her knees to her chest. The predator morphs, uncertain, into prey, _akul_ -scented on the wind, nowhere to run; they can only face it.

“That’s because it’s not our job,” Barriss says, face darkening.

“Why not? We are j—” Ahsoka swallows the word. They aren’t. Barriss, expelled. Ahsoka, lost.

Barriss shakes her head sharply. “No, that’s not what I meant. We should never have—we—we’re peacekeepers!” She says indignantly. “And that doesn’t mean pacifist, but it also doesn’t mean warmonger. The jedi lost their honor the second they put us on the battlefield.”

_Blasters-energy-darkness-death-dying-agony-conflict-violence-pain-destruction-death-war-war-war-war._

_Death Watch surrounds her, too close, and it damns them; her lightsabers whirl out and catch all four of them in the neck at once. And on to the next before their heads roll to a stop. Bloodless, cauterized death-wounds, but the_ smell _of it…._

The grasslands are set ablaze, and the predator learns to run with the flames, instead of from them.

_Barriss’ hands are never fully clean. Mud and viscera stain her skirts as she lashes out at the Umbarans to protect her men, and then drops to hold the men she couldn’t protect together in the Force, desperately failing to hold them all together, Master Luminara isn’t here no one is here it’s just Barriss and Death nipping at her heels._

Desert sands whirl and whip like glass shards, higher and higher and colder and colder until all that lasts is the storm.

And….and….

Anakin, only seven years older than Ahsoka is; Master Obi-Wan hadn’t even been knighted yet at his age. Ahsoka thinks about being thirteen and missing Temple classes for battles. Thinks about being fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and feeling death emanate from her lightsabers in the unifying force, stronger than any other feeling. 

Thinks about being knighted at seventeen. Thinks about Barriss alone on the battlefield. Thinks about Katooni, and wonders if she’s a Padawan yet. 

Thinks about _half_ of the Jedi Order, gone.

When the guards come back for her, Ahsoka stands and works the kinks out of her muscles ruthlessly fast, too used to her surroundings shifting on a credit to let that kind of weakness linger. Barriss stares after her with water and hope in her eyes, because they both know Ahsoka is coming back. More questions lie between them than answers, now.

* * *

The debriefings turn into hearings, public ones. Ahsoka’s shoulders tense every time she sets foot in the Senate, feeling the _searching-grasping-angry-false_ atmosphere. As inaction continues to dominate their government, some senators have started making noise about someone to blame for all of this. Like Sidious isn’t to blame; like they _all_ aren’t to blame.

Whenever the noise overwhelms her, the directionless anger prowling for an easy target, she finds her feet taking her back to Senator Organa’s offices, again and again. It’s the will of the Force that he’s always there when she does, always with tea already waiting for them. The unifying Force swirls lazily in the space around them in a way Ahsoka can’t interpret; like the future has its eyes on this moment in its past.

They talk about the proceedings. About the war. About the peace talks some Jedi are still presiding over without any authority to back them. Ahsoka discovers that she has opinions about these that are uniquely her own, ones Senator Organa finds fascinating in a purely kind way.

Senator Organa opens up about the troubles Alderaan’s relief missions face, without proper authority and with the Republic forces’ attention off some of the usual hyperspace lanes.

Frustration is a bonding emotion between them. But the time they spend together is the only peace Ahsoka’s life affords her. 

* * *

When Ahsoka left the Jedi Order, she felt the weight of all the work she wasn’t doing press hard on her shoulders, guilt twining between her legs and tripping her up every time happiness or contentment seemed in reach. It made it so easy to take Bo Katan’s hand when she reached out; so easy to take on Mandalore’s battles as her own, because it felt like _war_ and _inaction_ were her only options.

Ahsoka was decisive. Her actions determined the course of so many lives. So many troopers under her command, so many citizens depending on their victory; and for those brief, too-long hours with Maul, the whole Republic balanced on their backs.

Now, inaction has descended again. The weight of roads not taken and guilt encircle her throat like a collar. With Master Obi-Wan and Commander Cody and Captain Rex in the Senate every day, with Padmé and Senator Organa, the future of the Republic doges her every step, but she’s nearly powerless to help.

And it doesn’t help that her future with the Order is still up in the air.

Master Windu seems to have set her brief partnership with Maul aside until they know whether the Republic will fix itself, but having the threat of his disapproval hang over her head is worse than any swift punishment he could have devised. Like, for instance, barring her from rejoining the Order.

The Temple is her home. The Jedi are her people. Ahsoka knows she doesn’t want to live without them anymore.

But the Order has ground to a halt, and Ahsoka doesn’t know how to be still, anymore; her waiting is purely predatory, a simple watching for the next moment to strike. 

Meditating has never been her strong suit, but she takes it up again anyway. It’s supposed to afford her clarity, if not peace. 

In, out. In, out.

In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out. In, out.

Ahsoka lets out a frustrated huff. It’s so easy when she slips into the grasslands and the desert with Barriss; the both of them searching for answers no one seems to have, answers to questions too many people aren’t asking.

But on her own? For herself? 

Not a damn moment of clarity.

She lets out another frustrated huff and pushes to her feet. Fine. Moving meditation, it is. In, out. Rise. In, out.

In, out. Left foot back, right foot forward, arm across the body. Ahsoka automatically pulls her empty grip in front of her face, instead of at her side, and lets her other hand act as both counterbalance and guard behind her.

In, out. In, out.

Forward, back. 

Parry, attack, defend. 

Deflect. In, out.

In, out. In, out, In….. out…. …. ……….

She alternates slow and fast repetitions and allows the living Force to flow through her, abandoning all thought toward the future.

_In out forward back parry attack defend deflect in out; In, out, forward, back, parry, attack, defend, deflect, in……out…….._

“Always in motion, the future is,” Master Yoda says from where he’s settled into the grass across from her. “Always in motion, you are, Ahsoka.”

In, out. The grasslands recede, leaving only Ahsoka. She dashes the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand and falls into slow, easy stretches, letting the moment extend between her and her oldest teacher.

When they’re both ready, she releases a last breath and lowers herself in front of him.

“Happy here, you are not.” His ears dip low. “Happy here, many are not. Leaving, many are, to find themselves outside the Jedi Order.”

Ahsoka says nothing, content to wait for him to ask, not sure she has an answer to offer.

He sighs. “Leaving, are you, Ahsoka Tano?”

“I don’t know, master. I don’t know…what I’m supposed to do now.”

Yoda offers no answers, either. 

“Jedi, you are,” he says, but it feels like a question. He feels…uncertain, and it strikes Ahsoka like a blow. Yoda isn’t supposed to be uncertain; he’s supposed to be…Yoda!

_We’re peacekeepers!_ Barriss’ voice says in her mind, and he and Ahsoka flinch as one.

But…

“Yes,” she mulls, “I am a Jedi.” In, out. “But I don’t know what that means anymore. What we stand for. What we’re supposed to do,” she repeats her earlier refrain.

Yoda hums. “Neither do I,” he says, full of mischief and sorrow for not having the answers younglings always expect from him.

“Jedi, you are; in the Temple, Jedi, you are. On Mandalore, Jedi, you are. And on Felucia, Alderaan, Naboo, Tatooine.

“Jedi, you are, always.”

It rings out in the Force. _Daughter_ , it murmurs to her, and the cantor soars over the grasslands, free once again.

Her breath shudders out of her, leaving tears in its wake. She shudders, and cries, until it turns into great rolling _sobs_ that wrack her whole body and seep into the Force around them, sinking into the grass and plants and trees.

_Relief_. It flows openly between her and Master Yoda. _Relief-identity-purpose-forgiveness-Jedi_.

“Searching, you are, for answers none have yet. Find them for ourselves, we must. Yes,” he hums again. “Find them for ourselves, we will, and then, know them together, we will.”

She wipes uselessly at her face, still crying. “But what about the Senate, the armistices, the clones—”

Yoda shakes his head. “Your job, this is not. Jedi, you are. Jedi Knight, I name you, Ahsoka Tano; now; always. But _young_ , you still are. Heavy burdens, we have placed on the shoulders of all our younglings.”

“But you just said I was a Knight,” she protests, and he smiles at her.

“Younglings,” he grumbles playfully. “Younglings you all are, to me. Even Master Windu.”

A beat.

“Youngling you were, when sent into battle, you were. When send you into battle, the Council did.” He sighs heavily. “Great things, you have achieved, on the field of battle. Under _Master_ Skywalker’s tutelage,” he emphasizes Anakin’s new title. “An exaggeration, it is not, to say that saved the Republic, you have, Ahsoka Tano; even if with the unlikeliest of allies, you did. But had to, you should not have.”

_Half the Order, gone_.

Fresh tears flood her eyes, and the beginnings of a dehydration headache start to throb. 

“Many things, we will have to consider. What we have done, for the sake of this war. What we will do, for the sake of our future. Easier it is, for myself and other masters, to contemplate these things here, in the Temple. Easier it is not, for you.”

In, out. She breathes easier now than she has since the Temple was bombed months and months past. Now that Master Yoda…he…. Force, his approval still means so much to her. 

“Need my approval, you did not,” Master Yoda chides gently.

“I wanted it, though,” Ahsoka realizes. In, out. With his approval, so much of her uncertainty is gone, the things that temper her will to act dissipating with the knowledge that she isn’t _alone_ anymore.

Jedi aren’t meant to be alone. 

A breeze winds through the physical world around them, and Ahsoka tilts her head up to feel it better.

“Here we will be, when ready you are to return.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, she finds Skyguy at Padmé’s apartment. The two of them kind of abandoned any pretense when the war ended and he got to stay on Coruscant for more than a week. When his troops—and the Republic, nominally—didn’t need him on the field of battle anymore.

“I have something to tell you,” they say at the same time, awkwardly sitting across from each other at Padmé’s kitchen table; Padmé herself having retreated to her—her and Skyguy’s? —bedroom with her handmaidens to keep packing. Ahsoka doesn’t know everything about human reproductive cycles, but it doesn’t seem like Padmé can get much bigger without literally bursting, so she must be preparing for the end of it. She’ll be on Naboo for a few months.

Or at least, that’s what she says. Ahsoka suspects she may be back on Coruscant sooner, given the state of the galactic government.

They both gesture for the other to go first; they both pause awkwardly, waiting each other out, and Ahsoka rolls her eyes at them internally. Little gods, really? This is what they’re reduced to?

And then they speak at the same time _again_ :

“I’m rejoining the Order.”

“I’m leaving the Order.”

“ _What?_ ” They yell, _together_ , and Ahsoka growls at the both of them.

“You’re leaving the Order?” Ahsoka demands, finally speaking on her own.

“I,” Anakin blinks, and rubs the back of his neck like she’s blindsided him. “Yeah. I don’t think I can stay, Snips, not with the way things are.”

She raises her brow. “And how is that?”

He rolls his eyes at her, externally. “I’ve never exactly been a model Jedi, Ahsoka.”

“Banthashit. Everyone says you’re one of the best Jedi in the Order.”

“No,” he counters, “they say I’m one of the best _Generals_ in the order. One of the best warriors. And now,” he turns to look in the direction Padmé went and his whole being softens in the Force, “I want to try and be one of the best husbands. One of the best fathers,” he grins, and it strikes Ahsoka that he’s so _young_. He’s so young, to have done the things he’s done. So young to be a father.

Holy kriff, Anakin Skywalker is gonna be a dad. 

Visions of him jumping off of cliffs and being electrocuted run through her mind.

He catches the memories and grumbles at her. Sighs. 

“I don’t think I want to try and be a better Jedi, is the thing. There is no _try_ ,” he says bitterly. “Only do or do not.”

“And you…do not,” Ahsoka says hesitantly.

“I love my wife,” he says. “I love my children. I love you, and Obi-Wan, and Rex and our men. But I don’t love the Jedi Order anymore, if I ever did.”

Ahsoka thinks she loves the Order as much as it’s possible to love something so integral to who she is and who she wants to be.

_Were you not cast out of your Order?_

_I left voluntarily._

_Yes, but you were motivated to leave by the hypocrisy of the Jedi Council._

_Many things, we have to consider._

“So, what are you going to do now? If you’re not a Jedi.” Ahsoka asks.

Anakin leans back in his seat, crosses his arms.

_What do you want with Anakin Skywalker?_

_He is the key to everything. To destroy. He has long been groomed as my master’s new apprentice_.

The Force roils as he sees what she has seen, hears what Maul said to her; it’s always so responsive for him. Anger. Hate. Disbelief. 

Yeah. Ahsoka didn’t believe it either, until Maul told her who Sidious really was. Until they got to Coruscant and Ahsoka could feel Anakin, his rage and fear and uncertainty. They barely got there in time, and the galaxy hung in the balance between Anakin and Ahsoka. He pulls the memory of that from her too, and visibly brings himself back under control.

“I’m going to Naboo with Padmé. And maybe,” he hesitates. “I think I’ll help Rex and the other troops out, too. With whatever their plans are. Some other Jedi are helping, too. Aayla, for one,” he adds when he sees her twitch in curiosity. “Padmé’s been helping them fight the Senate for citizenship rights, and they’re just starting a search for places to settle down.”

“It’ll calm a lot of anxieties in the Senate when they find it,” Ahsoka says, mulling it over. “Having a standing army makes everyone nervous.”

Anakin snorts. “Sure. But it’s less that and more that they deserve it. They always deserved it,” he says lowly, the seeds of a greater anger taking root. “And if we tried to frame it like that, then some senators would say the troopers shouldn’t be able to leave until the Separatists decommission their droids.”

Something doesn’t quite make sense about that. Ahsoka thinks about what she’s caught of the recent debriefings, and can’t remember any of the senators talking about this as anything more than a distant possibility.

“Hang on,” she says, the pieces coming together. “What exactly are you planning, Skyguy?”

He grins, sharply this time. “Yeah, don’t go spreading it around. We, uh, _requisitioned_ some medical droids and started removing their chips _weeks_ ago. There’s nothing stopping them for doing whatever they want, now.”

“Holy kriff,” Ahsoka breathes, eyes wide. “How is this even going to—they’re still members of the GAR, can’t they get court martialed?”

“Not if all of them leave,” he smirks. “There’s no law or force in the galaxy that could tell them all what to do, anymore.”

She thinks about Anakin and Rex, Master Obi-Wan and Commander Cody, Master Windu and Commander Ponds. “Not even the Jedi.”

“Which you’re going back to.”

“I am a Jedi,” she says, and the Force winds around her like a satisfied lothcat. Anakin senses it and purses his lips. “A Jedi Knight,” she adds, and his shoulders sag in defeat.

“It suits you,” he admits, and leans back toward her over the table. 

“Just because I’m a Jedi doesn’t mean I’m staying here, though. I’m not just gonna sit around, anymore, even if the Order isn’t assigning missions.”

He hesitantly reaches for her hand. “So, you’ll come to Naboo to meet the twins, when they’re born? It won’t be long now,” he says, not meeting her eyes.

She reaches back, leaning closer to snag his prosthetic hand, too. “I wouldn’t miss it, Skyguy.”

A beat.

“Hang on, twins? _Two_ of them?”

He bursts out laughing, and the whole apartment brightens with his delight. “That’s exactly what Obi-Wan said!”

* * *

Ahsoka walks into Senator Organa’s offices on purpose, for once, and he looks up at her in surprise. 

“I see I’ve finally caught you off guard,” she grins. “I was starting to think you had foresight, the way you’re always ready for me.”

“Well,” he smiles warmly and gestures for her to sit, “perhaps you’ve finally done something unpredictable, Master Jedi.”

He’s called her that this whole time, oddly enough, from the first moment she burst into his space in a panic. Always certain of who she was. It’s pretty telling in retrospect that she never corrected him.

“What brings you to me today?” He asks.

“You’re still having trouble with your relief missions,” Ahsoka states. “I want to help.”

Senator Organa’s brow furrows. “I was unaware the Jedi Order has started assigning missions again. Or the Senate, for that matter.”

“They haven’t,” Ahsoka grins. “But as a fully-fledged Jedi Knight, I’m allowed to offer my services as I see fit, even outside officially sanctioned missions.”

“That’s a very generous offer.”

“I want to help.” She repeats plainly, but it means something different this time. “And I know you want to help, too. I trust your judgment; and,” she shrugs, “Alderaan’s judgment, too.”

“And what kind of help is that, exactly?”

“Whatever kind of help is needed. Diplomacy, piloting, negotiating.” She grins again. “Aggressive negotiations.”

Senator Organa studies her, his hand coming up to his chin in a contemplative gesture. “I trust your judgement as well, Master Jedi.”

Ahsoka sighs in relief. “Well, that’s good.” Her backup plans if this didn’t work were pretty, uh, nebulous. 

“You’ve been very occupied by the Senate hearings and the armistices; I suppose,” he says slowly, meeting her eyes directly, “I’m surprised at this decision. I thought you would remain on Coruscant until matters were settled.”

She tilts her head to the side and considers it. “Maybe, in another life. But I think I’m ready to let other people decide the fate of the galaxy again,” she says like it’s a joke, but feels relieved when Senator Organa doesn’t take it like one. “I think,” she continues tentatively, “I can finally trust that everything will still be here when I return. And in the meantime, there are people who need my help, and I need to help them.”

“You’re in luck,” Senator Organa says, pulling one datapad of many off his desk and thumbing it open. “Queen Breha just finalized the details of a joint relief mission with Chandrilla to Ryloth. They only accept aid now when it isn’t the military delivering it, but the hyperspace lanes between there and Alderaan are still tumultuous. And to be honest,” he admits, “we could use some help smoothing the transfers over with local officials, too.”

Ahsoka breathes out, and feels this mission sink onto her shoulders, displacing the greater weights that took up that space before. Greater, but not more important.

“I’ll put you in contact with the mission lead, they can give you details about departure times and what exactly they’ll want you to do.”

“Thank you, Senator Organa,” Ahsoka says as she pushes to her feet.

“I think you can call me Bail,” he says, extending a hand.

“Then I think you should call me Ahsoka,” she replies, taking it.

* * *

Anakin drags Rex and Kix and Jesse and Cody to Naboo with him, when it’s time, and Padmé thanks them quietly for bringing him back to her, more whole than he’s been since they rode into an arena chained together.

Time away from the politics of rebuilding a government and the Jedi Order—and the relationship between the two and the larger galaxy—has been so good for him that she can’t begrudge personal opportunities lost.

At least now, she knows he’s safe in more ways than one, working for something he really believes in.

* * *

Ahsoka meets Luke and Leia ten days local standard after they’re born at Varykino on Naboo, and loves them instantly.

A Feeling strikes her as she stares down at the pair of them, utterly enchanting and more powerful than anything she’s ever seen before. “Oh, they’re going to be trouble.”

“You think?” Anakin grins at her.

* * *

Barriss can _feel_ it, somehow, when Ahsoka finally leaves Coruscant again. Like their increasingly frequent joint meditations have bound them together.

Her strength in the unifying Force has only ever brought her pain; foresight in the middle of a war is nothing but death and darkness. But as Ahsoka leaves, more settled than she’s been since Barriss utterly destroyed the trust between them, and between them and the Order and the Republic, the Force seeps into her vision once again.

Desert winds swirl, sweeping aside too-familiar sands to reveal what potential lies underneath.

Growth. New beginnings. Life.

* * *

Barriss _sees:_

_Her hands sweeping over the head of an anxious youngling, murmuring sweet nothings as she applies bacta patches to the saber burns the little Twi’leck who slipped during their first training class, completely accidental._

_“It’s going to be alright,” Barriss says with a smile, and she_ believes _it. And the youngling believes_ her _._

* * *

Barriss _s e e s:_

_It is not so easy for the scars of war to fade._

_We are not soldiers; but we used to be; but we shouldn’t have been._

_When the Jedi Order shouldered the burden of galactic war for the Senate, their lauded foresight didn’t reveal the perils of the aftermath. What the real cost of war is for the soldiers who fight it: the ones who die for it, and the ones who have to live with it. Live with what they did in the name of something that was truly corrupted._

_Too late for what? The Republic to fall? It already has, and you just can't see it! There is no justice, no law, no **order** , except for the one that will replace it!_

_The temple of the New Republic is not a sanctuary suffused with the warmth of a thousand years of brotherhood that they once lived in. It reflects its inhabitants in more ways than one._

_It is an alert place, the tension of a thousand survivors of Civil War trained to be on their guard, always. At once a more insular place, disillusioned with the government they’re re-learning how to serve, even now, years after the fact, and a more connected place, with the Jedi more aware of the people themselves by necessity. There are some who will always be more comfortable in a battle than out of it, no matter how long it’s been, because they came of age in battle after battle after battle. But there are others who are finally growing up without a war nipping at their heels, corrupting them._

_Jedi come and go more frequently than they used to. There are more Rangers and Watchman than there have been in hundreds of years._

_But they_ are _. And they_ will be _._

* * *

Barriss _sees:_

_Ahsoka climbs the steps to the Temple, her home, completely at ease, the echoes of her descending them in anguish and uncertainty long faded. Returning from a long, satisfying journey._

_Barriss is waiting for her just inside the Temple walls and falls in step next to her. They make their way through the Temple together._

_Younglings and Padawans and younger knights and older masters alike whisper in Ahsoka’s wake, as they always do; things they once whispered about_ her _Master, and his Master before him: one of the greatest Jedi of the era. Sith-slayer. Negotiator. Warrior. Her adventures are easy stories to tell in creches, ones where the Jedi triumphs over many different types of evil._

_The reality of them is more complicated, of course, but that is something saved for people who can bear it and learn from in; not fear it._

_“She’s waiting for you,” Barriss says calmly._

_Ahsoka groans. “Barriss, I haven’t even been home five minutes, can’t this wait?”_

_“You’re ready. She’s_ more _than ready; she’s been waiting for you.”_

_“Am I? Ready, I mean,” Ahsoka says uncertainly._

_They pause in the hallway, passersby parting around them without protest because it’s clear to everyone that the pair of them must stop here._

_“Are you?”_

_She heaves a long, heavy sigh that slides into another groan. “To train a padawan?” Ahsoka hesitates. “Or to stay in the Temple again?”_

_Barriss says nothing, projecting the serenity she feels every day in the Temple; the serenity she feels when she’s with Ahsoka; the serenity that emanates from their current topic through the unifying Force._

_“Because I won’t train a Padawan the way we were trained,” Ahsoka says harshly. “Always on the move. No solid ground to fall back on, no peace. That’s not who we are.”_

_“Not anymore,” Barriss replies, with that same hint of bitterness. In, out. She releases it as quickly as it appeared._

_“I want her to know peace, Barriss. And love,” she adds petulantly, still stinging from her last debate with some of their elders over the Skywalker Clan, the one Barriss suspects played no small part in sending her back out of the Temple again. “Safety.”_

_“Well, you have your answer, then.”_

_Ahsoka looks at her blankly._

_“Who better to provide those things than you? It’s not like you’d trust anyone else with her, at this point. Still ready to take the fate of the whole galaxy onto your shoulders, Knight Tano,” Barriss teases, gently, because that weight still aches for her friend even now._

_“And you’re still ready to take its wounds onto yours, Healer Offee,” Ahsoka returns._

_“It’s not like you’ll be alone,” Barriss says with exasperation, starting through the Temple again. Ahsoka keeps to her side automatically, her ‘sabers swinging at her hips. “You’ll have me, and Master Kenobi, and Knight Katooni, and even—Skywalker,” she settles on delicately. “Even if he should never be allowed near our younglings.”_

_“Maybe we can share her,” Ahsoka muses lightly, still protesting Barriss’ decision not to take an apprentice. Barriss lets it go for now, because she just won the argument._

_They slow to a halt outside the Bear Clan’s quarters, and Ahsoka curses. “C’mon, I haven’t even showered yet!”_

_“You’re no good to anyone putting things off. Always on the move, that Ahsoka Tano. Always looking forward.”_

_Ahsoka sighs again, with a touch of finality, and relents. She turns to Barriss and tilts her forehead to bump into her friend’s. “Thank you.”_

_“Anytime,” Barriss says, and presses into Ahsoka’s touch for a moment, before giving her friend one final_ push _._

_“Hey!” Ahsoka exclaims as she stumbles through the Clan’s doorway, but Barriss is already halfway down the hallway, her lingering amusement in the Force the only sign she was ever there._

* * *

Barriss sits in her cell and weeps unabashedly, full of relief for this gift the Force has given her: a future. 

For her people.

For herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Barriss really crept up on me, she wasn't supposed to be a big a part of this as she was. Also I'd like to believe Bail and Ahsoka are unlikely friends and associates in every universe. 
> 
> Talk to me about how Ahsoka was the very best of them, and had the Jedi Order survived, she would have been a galaxy wide force to be reckoned with, the best parts of all her master but also something unique to her. P.S. the Force does play favorites and Ahsoka is one of them.
> 
> edit 11/19/2020: now with a less-coherent sequel!


End file.
